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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839427">the thing with feathers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/maricolous/pseuds/maricolous'>maricolous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, or: caduceus compartmentalises so hard he forgets how to emotion, spoilers for c2e96</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:20:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,528</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/maricolous/pseuds/maricolous</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Caduceus stays within the grove, tends to the graves and talks to the world around him. He waits and dreams, waits and fears, waits and grieves, waits and hopes, and waits. And then he leaves.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caduceus Clay &amp; Clay Family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the thing with feathers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>after last night i'm lost in the loving caduceus sauce...lost in the cadusauce, if you will. this does glaze over his time with the mighty nein, but i couldn't stop thinking about his feelings re: his family enough to go into All That</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Constance and Corrin are the first to leave.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Look after the grove,” Constance tells them all.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Look after each other,” Corrin tells them all.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Caduceus feels the weight of all their glances when Corrin speaks, even Clarabelle, who doesn’t yet understand why they all look at him in this way. He stands at the gates to watch them go as the rest of the family disperses to their regular duties, lingering long after they disappear beyond his sight. Only the fall of dusk spurs him to close the gates. He catches Colton’s eye as he turns toward the house and pretends not to notice what he finds there.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They all carry on as before, Caduceus spending a little extra time on the graves now that Corrin is gone. Clarabelle helps in her own way, which involves bringing Caduceus various bugs and leaves. He dutifully pauses with her to eat several leaves every afternoon, once he’s ascertained they haven’t come from an infected source. Sometimes Calliope joins them too, when she isn’t guarding the grove, just to have an excuse to press her fingers into the cool dirt.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Little else changes. Caduceus and Calliope and Clarabelle play and cross lines and fight and make up, while Colton keeps himself purposely above it all. The house is as noisy as ever it was, despite the two absent voices in the mix.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Time doesn’t mean much when you live with nothing but nature, but it feels like barely two seasons have passed when Cornelius announces his intentions to leave as well.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m going too,” Calliope says, before he can tell them to look after each other.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No one argues with her. They’ve watched her hammer out a new set of armour, caught her staring down the path through the wood more and more with each passing moon cycle, and Caduceus has dreamed of her somewhere far and cold so many times in the last cycle that he’s nearly sick of it.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Caduceus, help me pack,” Calliope says, as Clarabelle hugs their father, who’s deep in conversation with Colton.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sure,” Caduceus says, thinking of what he can sneak into her packs as they make their way inside. He doesn’t expect bugs will be much of a surprise, not when Clarabelle collects so many of them that they’ve grown used to being covered in them anyway.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He isn’t expecting to have a set of armour shoved into his arms.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh,” he says, mystified. “This is…”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s for you,” Calliope says gruffly. “I know Dad’s relying on Colton to keep the place safe but you…you have a special connection with Her. I know you do. And Clara’s too young to take watch yet. So wear this, and keep Clara safe.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Caduceus lets her help him into the armour, and he accepts the beautiful staff she presents him, and he still sneaks a nice hairy spider into her bag when her back is turned. He may not witness her scream when she finds it, but knowing it’s there is enough to keep him smiling through their goodbyes.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s quieter after that. Caduceus and Clarabelle still run around the grove, still make mischief, and Colton still keeps himself out of their way, but two voices aren’t quite the choir that three can be. Caduceus takes to speaking to the plants more, to the ill animals that try to make their way into the grove, and more than anything, he speaks to the Wildmother. She’s always spoken to him when he’s needed her, but he speaks first now.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s rarely a true conversation, most often a ripple of wind through the grove indicating her presence. He feels the warm breeze against his neck when he talks an angry fox into turning back the way it came, a pleasantly autumnal chill against his fingers when he sets his mind to growing the blooms from their boarders in the graveyard.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When a badly timed prank sends him tumbling down the stairs and Clarabelle tumbling after, he feels a searing heat in his palms as he places them to the large blooming bruise on Clarabelle’s temple, and watches it fade away, watches her long eyelashes flutter as she opens her eyes again. Caduceus feels a different searing heat as Colton glares at him for days and days after, even as Clarabelle resumes her running about as if it had never happened, and Caduceus leans heavily on his staff to follow at a much slower pace, refusing to use his newfound abilities on himself.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He heals every bump and bruise Clarabelle gets after that, plying her into stillness with tea in order to do so, and he heals every wound Colton gets from patrolling the wood without a word.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Colton never thanks him. He doesn’t expect any thanks, and tells himself so until he believes it.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His knee is healed up by the time he starts dreaming again, and he begins to assemble things piecemeal the day after the first dream. No bugs in Colton’s pack, only the necessary supplies and a pouch of his favoured tea.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You can’t go alone!” Clarabelle cries when Colton finally tells them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Caduceus and Colton turn to look at her simultaneously.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’re right,” Colton says slowly, taking the pack that Caduceus had prepared and draping it across Clarabelle’s shoulders. “Perhaps you and I should have an adventure.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She’s not even of age,” Caduceus protests, something bitter on his tongue at the thought of being left behind though he knows it's the best decision.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Someone needs to look after the grove, Caduceus,” Colton says, using his most reasonable and condescending tone. “You’re responsible, and you’re better with the creatures than we are. You’ll be fine. Won’t he, Clara?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Clarabelle hugs him around the waist and she barely comes to his shoulder even now, but it feels like a goodbye. Someone does have to stay, and someone does have to go.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll bring you the nicest thing,” Clarabelle promises. “And we’ll bring everyone home and fix the wood and everything will be better.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Caduceus wants to believe her and he stares after them as he stared after the rest of the family when they go.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Seasons pass. The infection of the wood spreads, inching ever closer. Caduceus stays within the grove, tends to the graves and talks to the world around him. He waits and dreams, waits and fears, waits and grieves, waits and hopes, and waits. And then he leaves, hope and fear and grief held close, kept away from his new companions.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When the Wildmother gifts him the ability to look upon his family, cycles later, on road and sea with his ragtag bunch, he doesn’t. He throws himself at Fjord’s problem instead, dispenses advice and presses his own tangled feelings deeper and deeper under the weight of his faith. It’s easy enough, burying the grief deeper than all else, but allowing hope and fear to get air sometimes, as they receive the crystals from the Dusts and he brings Fjord into the Wildmother’s embrace, as they make their way through the jungles of southernmost Xhorhas. He releases the fear into the decomposition of the world around him, lets it tangle with hope when Caleb kills the thing that’s frozen his family in time.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The grief he finally pulls out when they have Corrin in pieces, and he dusts it off as he and Calliope wrestle and bicker in the temple that night. He’s ready to let it blossom under the jungle sun the next morning, when he has everyone else back but Corrin, and then Jester does the impossible, just as she always does, and the grief has to be set aside as decisions are made about the next step.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s a relief to have his family back, it’s a joy that they’re alive and well, and he cherishes the time he has with them. Guilt takes the reins away as they make their way through Uthodurn not even hours later. He can’t go home, Caduceus thinks. He owes his friends, his companions, he tells himself. They’ve done this for him and there is work yet to be done, and he’s going to help them just as he has been since they met. He doesn’t let himself think that he doesn’t want to go home just yet.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Saying goodbye again isn’t easy, and it isn’t hard. It simply is. He’s had practice. He lets himself feel what he must, burning their faces into his memory as firmly as he can, and promising himself that he’ll ask Jester to check in with them later.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The group doesn’t talk about it, not yet, dancing around it while Caleb draws them a teleportation circle, and Caduceus can feel the way they're all balancing on the edge of something unfathomably deep, trying to keep each other from falling in without daring to hold on. It aches and aches and it will ache more, but he can’t imagine them any other way.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Caduceus feels grief settle into his chest again as he watches the teleportation glyphs light up, cold and hard and inexplicably still there. This time, he buries it even deeper. This time, it’s buried by itself.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>as always, u can find me @ naomiherne on tumblr</p></blockquote></div></div>
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